Thought Experiment

Economics Political Theory
1

Here is a thought experiment relating to property ownership.

There is a desert island in the middle of the ocean, where an islander lives and has a just claim to the island and everything on it as his property. A castaway washes up on shore from a shipwreck. The islander has a radio and could hypothetically radio for help.

Does the islander have a right to force the castaway back into the water, likely to drown?

Does the castaway have a right to demand use of the islanders radio?

Does the islander have a right to shoot or incarcerate the castaway?

2

could hypothetically radio for help.

Why hasn’t he used it yet? If he hasn’t used it, then he can survive on the island. This means that there is no life-threatening situation on the island, meaning that the second question should be anwered in the negative.

Need to think more on the others.

3

The islander owns the radio, but for the sake of argument, we will assume that he doesn’t allow the castaway to use it. Coercing the man to allow the castaway radio use would be a violation of the NAP.

4

Rights are societal constructs. So it doesn’t look like you’re referring to anything. Maybe you’re referring to the theoretical propertarian framework? But that doesn’t apply because there isn’t even a third person who could take sides.

So this situation is just a matter of either conflict or cooperation, and you could wonder what the smartest way of dealing would be for one or the other.

5

Haha, I was about to link to this:

http://vforvoluntary.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=179

to give another opinion, but Nielsio beat me to it :stuck_out_tongue:

6

So for property to be considered property, there needs to be at least 3 people present? Doesn’t sound like any definition of property rights I have ever heard.

7

That’s why I disagree with Nielsio.

8

Though de-facto it is true

9

I also disagree with Nielso on that link you provided, when he implies property is only property once it has been transformed. What if you find a diamond on the ground and pick it up? Is it not your property? You didn’t transform it at all.

10

I think one possible answer might be to ask how the current system would solve this. Well, will we have enforcement agents everywhere? We can’t even if we want to. So the scenario remains the same in either case.

Then again, we might want to ask what legal ethics dictates. Then the question still stands.

11

That is basically the point of the question, it isn’t exactly to discover WHAT would happen, but rather what would be legally and ethically correct given the circumstances.

12

The bummer is that you remove all the free market elements that would prevent this from happening :stuck_out_tongue:

13

Exactly. It was a question posed by a liberal to me and some fellow ancaps on the NationStates General forums. We all had different answers, so we decided to toss it over to the Mises Forums to get your guys opinions.

14

If he’s using that as an argument, it’s irrelevant, as no state can provide a nice solution (unless it injects brain chips).

15

I agree, and I already tossed him a utilitarian argument along those lines, but he is claiming that libertarian ethics then considers slavery or incarceration to be freedom.

16

ZombieRothbard,

Extracting something from nature is considered an improvement.

When you pluck an apple from a tree, that’s your apple. The tree however is not.

17

Actually libertarians consider slavery to be immoral even if it is voluntary. I think that they also frown on incarceration (I say they because I have not read up on jail theory). Can I have a link to this?

18

It may be an improvement, but you aren’t altering it like you would if you were homesteading and mixing your labor with the land.

19

Look up title-transfer theory of contract.

20

Can I have a link to your discussion with the liberal guy?